Question

I am doing it this way:

@disabled_options = []
Category.where('ancestry is NULL').each do |cat|
  @disabled_options << cat.id if cat.has_children?
end

Is there any more elegant way to get all parent without children?

Answer 1

Category.where("id IN (SELECT parent_id FROM categories)")

Assuming parent_id is a field pointing to the parent category.

This will select those categories that are pointed to using “parent_id”, so if there’s a child, the child will have “parent_id” set, therefore the category referenced to by “parent_id” has children.